My mistakes in domaining by blowing over $30,000...

Looking backwards into my domaining journey, I realized that there were mistakes that I made.
Here are some of them:

1) I always knew the potential of hand registrations. However, I failed to classify my investments into short term liquidity investments, medium term investments and long term holds. As a result, I ended up selling some of my best names for very very cheap and some of normal ones were held only to end up expiring.

Lesson Learnt: Classify your investment. It will help you hold onto good investments.

2) I did not fix the proper amount of money I would reinvest from the profits that I make on my investments. As a result, a lot of it was spent unnecessarily without being reinvested properly.

Lesson Learnt: Plan a proper reinvestment strategy otherwise you wouldn't know where you blew the profits.

3) Maintaining an excel sheet of all the domain names that you own, their date of registration, acquisition price, renewal date and classifying it as short, medium or long term investment is important. I lost a lot of good domain names because I forgot to renew it in time.

Lesson Learnt: Maintain an excel sheet of your portfolio with expiration date. This way, you know when and what to renew, what to hold and make an informed decision.

4) A strict track of your investment, returns, profits, losses is very very necessary. I made over $30,000 in 2 years of domaining only to realize later that all that money was spent without reinvestment, having no track of where I blew up the whole $30,000 - $40,000 living a good lifestyle, partying and so on.

Lesson Learnt: Keeping a track of your cash flow is necessary. It helps you plan better, maintain a budget and strategize your future.

I can relate. I don't distinguish my names for short term sale(the more average names that keep money flowing) so I end up waiting for incoming offers on the better names. By that time.. I am in debt. I then make a good sale and have to use that money to pay off the debt. Not getting to truly enjoy the sale.

In some cases I make money and I invest in a bunch of things online.. and don't have much money left and nothing to show. I need to organize and plan and invest with a purpose.

There is also the risk to sell great names at cheap prices out of desperation in order to create some cash flow.

mistakes are part of the learnign process. think of your losses as paying for a course or class to learn domaining of course you don't wanna pay too much for a course.. but.. in most cases, the classes won't be free

mistakes are part of the learnign process. think of your losses as paying for a course or class to learn domaining of course you don't wanna pay too much for a course.. but.. in most cases, the classes won't be free

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Time is of the essence. I spent too much $$ up front while leaving good domains on hold while life got in the way. Like a garden, it takes time to grow - to research, generate stats and understand the investment potential. Definitely a learning curve in the world of domaining.

When receiving decent offers, wait 1 day at least to think it over before accepting or countering.
Often countering is always the instinct, but more and more some buyers are not interested in negotiations these days.

Lost quite a few potential sales due to this.

Also imagine the physical cash in front of you, sometimes $1000 will have a different impression.

Also you may turn down a 500-1k offer for a name, but waiting 1-2 days, if you get another $500 offer for some other names, then you just look at the total and it's worth accepting all the offers in a cumulative sense. Hindsight....

When receiving decent offers, wait 1 day at least to think it over before accepting or countering.
Often countering is always the instinct, but more and more some buyers are not interested in negotiations these days.

Lost quite a few potential sales due to this.

Also imagine the physical cash in front of you, sometimes $1000 will have a different impression.

Also you may turn down a 500-1k offer for a name, but waiting 1-2 days, if you get another $500 offer for some other names, then you just look at the total and it's worth accepting all the offers in a cumulative sense. Hindsight....

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You make a great point.

I lost a sell on a two word domain in June 2017. I GoDaddy.com broker contacted me on behalf of the client. I value the domain at $5-10K, turned down the $1K. I countered with $5K, broker said the buyer wasn't interested. We ended negotiations, I refused to sale for $1K but had I been in a more desperate financial situation I'd have taken $1K. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the buyer returns before the end of December. Too often, I don't hear/see domain speculators telling newbies to fully assess their financial leverage/bankroll before turning down less than ideal offers on low-demand domains.

I can relate. I don't distinguish my names for short term sale(the more average names that keep money flowing) so I end up waiting for incoming offers on the better names. By that time.. I am in debt. I then make a good sale and have to use that money to pay off the debt. Not getting to truly enjoy the sale.

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If you are settling debts that are not from domaining, it is kind of investment. Or using the money wisely.
As per investments online, those can be considered as what I call "Experiment Money". Unless you invest and experiment with stuff, you wouldn't know what works for you. So, I would say you are, to some extent using the money properly. There are always avenues for improvement and better management though.

mistakes are part of the learnign process. think of your losses as paying for a course or class to learn domaining of course you don't wanna pay too much for a course.. but.. in most cases, the classes won't be free

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Well, that is another way of saying "Grapes are sour". But since I did not manage the money properly, I now know how to spend it properly. If you learnt something without paying too much for the lessons, it should be used as a plus and to your advantage to shorten the curve and try more things.

Don't be in hurry to sell even if you get 10x the offer. Try to research who the buyer is and to what use the domain is been bought. I have sold 2 domain in Low xxxx where as I could have got xxxxx.

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Happens every time. Everytime I make a sale where I quote the price and the buyer agrees, it feels like I left some money on the table. It is only psychological. However, who doesn't like more moeny :p

I lost a sell on a two word domain in June 2017. I GoDaddy.com broker contacted me on behalf of the client. I value the domain at $5-10K, turned down the $1K. I countered with $5K, broker said the buyer wasn't interested. We ended negotiations, I refused to sale for $1K but had I been in a more desperate financial situation I'd have taken $1K. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the buyer returns before the end of December. Too often, I don't hear/see domain speculators telling newbies to fully assess their financial leverage/bankroll before turning down less than ideal offers on low-demand domains.

...be careful with counter-offers.

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Point noted!! But to extract the full potential out of a name and when the other party may be desperate or have deep pockets, it may pay off big time as well..

Back in 2002 I wanted to develop Banner Exchange Network (they were popular) so I end up with domain B a n E x .Net (also when I was checking com, it was free to register).
I never developed that site. In 2006 I was offered $5k for that domain and refuse (wasn't in domaining back then) with impression that domain will worth more in the future.
Fortunately, I sold it 2 months ago for 1200$ (com is listed for 15k)
My regrets are not registering com extension back then, and refusing 5k offer

Point noted!! But to extract the full potential out of a name and when the other party may be desperate or have deep pockets, it may pay off big time as well..

Worth the risk sometimes, isn't it?

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Like you said, "its worth the risk." It all boils down to bankroll, leverage, and personal balance sheet. Too often newbies base their negotiations on general 101 rules that apply to those with lots of experience and capital. Before turning down legitimate offers, you should always assess your risk aversion and know your buyer to the extent that you can.

"don't spray and pray"
- Don't invest on the things that you don't know.
"don't sell for cheap"
- every domain suits to an ass in the world. do research and find out the right ass for your domain
"invest some money on liquidable domains"
-liquidate the domains if you need money rather than selling quality domains for cheap.

Declining several perfectly reasonable mid/upper " four figures " offers to purchase several of our domains some years ago while holding out - maybe a bit greedily - for retrospectively too high
five figure purchase offers.

All of the five figure offers must have been lost in the mail as I didn't see 'em arrive.